


don’t look back

by lupescx



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, F/M, Loss, Orpheus and Eurydice, Poetic, because they parallel so well, no actual names but we know who it’s about, they deserve better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:22:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26076388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lupescx/pseuds/lupescx
Summary: The Doctor would go to Hell if Clara asked.And, she would.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	don’t look back

You hold his hand and know that you’re in love. He presses a kiss to your palm and it’s a promise, speaking of forever and all that time in eternity entails. There’s no rings or rice but he’s touched your heart, your perfect body with his mind. 

He does not sing but the cadence of his voice is a melody of it’s own. The words could spin you into endless sleep or lift you to the highest peak, gazing into dawn’s glow. You could bask always in the tune had your union been blessed for it. 

There is a hunter, yet she is not aiming for you. Her piercing eyes, merciless, led you to the snake, and this is not a tale of Icarus yet you fall anyway. Wings cut like a scythe. The raven takes your soul.

You watched her body crumple. Darkness manifests and all that tempers fury is the promise of forever. She is not lost, not yet with a voice like yours. The dial to Hell opens.

Death itself greets you at the gate, stilling only with your confession. Speak with clarity; profess the untold. Spill your grief and let it carry you to absolution, even if it takes you a billion years.

A bird sharpens its beak on a mountain. A man cracks a wall with his fist. Someone sings with open wounds and the sound of his lyre parts fog and spirits. You can wear away even the deadest, darkest secrets with time. Time decays.

The future is history that has yet to happen. Impossibilities break with the outlier. The wall shatters and the forces of the underworld step aside. In his fortress, the Lord waits for you to beg.

You drag her from damnation, haunted by the promise of a fixed point. Don’t look back. Look at her and she dissolves, mist on the window of your mind. Trust she follows, hold faith her heart will beat.

Stumble through the darkness; curse Hades, curse your maker, damn the fool you’ve become. Turn your head and watch her disappear. Her perfect image leaves your mind and you lose her forever.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always looked at Clara as sort of an Icarus character, but the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice fit her and the Doctor so perfectly—can’t stop thinking about the parallels.


End file.
